A garden without a view can seem too confining and insular so consider how your garden might connect to the surrounding landscape. If your garden is enclosed by high walls or fences, think about creating openings in them to give views onto the world outside.

Think about what you want your garden to do. It should reflect your lifestyle, the people who will be enjoying it and the time you plan to spend in it, whether it is relaxing, playing or tending the plants.

Edinburgh Garden School offer accredited online courses for students wishing to prepare for the RHS Level 2 or Level 3 exams. The RHS certificates are widely recognised within the industry and well-regarding.

You can have a pleasant resting spot beneath a shady tree even if space in your garden is limited. Many attractive trees are suitable for the smaller garden, achieving just a few feet in height even when fully grown.

In spots where nothing seems to grow except weeds, hoeing and weeding may not be enough to keep the quick, unwanted growth at bay. You can achieve an attractive, low-maintenance display with shrubs that have a naturally low habit of growth.

A Profusion of Blooms A well-planned, colourful herbaceous border can be a focal point in the garden. With a sequence of perennials coming into flower, the border can be an ever-changing spectrum of beautiful...

If you lack the space for a formal rock garden, but long for a display of alpine plants and flowers, a dry stone wall is the ideal solution. The combination of natural stone and colourful mountain flowers brings out the best of both.

You can recreate the beauty of natural heather landscapes on a smaller scale in your garden. Heathers have the advantage of needing a minimum of care. With careful planning you can achieve a beautiful mixture of subtle shades.

Once the soil has started to warm up, apply a mulch to borders to prevent weeds growing and conserve moisture. Don’t do this too quickly, however, as if the soil is still cold the mulch will stop it warming up and, as a result, inhibit plant growth. Apply the mulch after rain so that the soil is also moist.

With a little careful planning and some imagination you can create an uplifting spring border that begins to flower before the end of winter and provides a constant display of cheerful colour until early summer.

An espalier is any plant that is trained to grow against a wall or along a framework, so that instead of developing a naturally rounded form, it grows into a flattened, two-dimensional shape. Creating an espalier takes time and a certain amount of skill.

Planting plans are used to show the detail of planting within a design. Unless the garden is very small, the garden designer will usually produce a separate planting plan for each border and key area of the design.